Israeli Troops Murder Retarded Palestinian Boy AlJazeera.net
Wednesday 15 February 2006, 12:27 Makka Time, 9:27 GMT We ask you to consider what Americans would do, how they would feel, if the Canadian police shot and murdered an unarmed boy, a boy known to be retarded, while he walked down the street with a stick in his hand? Would you remain quiet about such a shooting? Why do you remain quiet now?
A Palestinian teenager with learning difficulties has been shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
Palestinian security forces said Israeli soldiers shot and killed Mujahid Samadi, a retarded 15-year-old Palestinian boy who was carrying a stick in his hand, on Wednesday. Witnesses said the clashes had broken out when about 20 Israeli jeeps entered the village of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, in the early morning. The victim had wandered out into the streets with a stick in his hand which the Israelis appeared to have mistaken for a weapon. A spokesman for the army said that initial reports indicated that soldiers had identified a "suspect armed with a weapon who was threatening them and fired in his direction." Palestinian security forces said Samadi died immediately after Israeli soldiers shot him through the chest. The death brings the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian uprising to 4955, according to an AFP count. The majority have been Palestinian. |